The Earth Institute, Columbia University welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the compilation
document being prepared in advance of the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable
Development.

We are now a crowded, interconnected, global society, with seven billion people struggling to find a
foothold on a highly vulnerable planet. The challenges of feeding the world, keeping it safe from
persistent epidemic diseases such as malaria and AIDS and new and emerging diseases such as Swine Flu
and SARS, conserving biodiversity, mitigating and adapting to climate change, water and food scarcity,
and combining economic progress with local and global environmental safety are the defining
challenges of our time. Hunger, poverty, and environmental degradation often are underlying causes of
conflict and violence.

We are in a new global era, termed the Anthropocene, and one that will come to be known as the Age
of Sustainable Development. Our security, even our survival, will depend on the world forging a triple
commitment: to protect the environment, to end extreme poverty; to ensure human rights for all.

In 2012, world governments will reunite in Rio de Janeiro, 20 years after the historic conference at which
they signed the first comprehensive treaties to fight human-induced climate change and to stop the loss
of biodiversity. There have been modest achievements, especially in developing the basis for these
challenges, but far too little has been accomplished.

The programs of the Earth Institute are underpinned and guided by the premise: the world has the
scientific and technological know-how and resources to raise living standards in a sustainable manner
and solve humanitys most urgent problems, ranging from ending extreme poverty to mitigating and
adapting to climate change, to managing freshwater scarcity and reversing biodiversity loss and
environmental degradation. The Earth Institutes complex transdisciplinary work, which is grounded in
hundreds of research projects carried out and implemented in locations worldwide, validates this
perspective and highlights the pressing sectoral priorities and exciting and innovative initiatives that are
described in this document.

The Earth Institute believes that the priorities of the Rio +20 Earth Summit ought to be the following:

1. Re-double efforts to stabilize the human population by encouraging countries to take responsibility for
rapidly growing populations. Human population can be stabilized by decreasing child mortality rates;
providing free or affordable contraception; empowering women to make their own choices, and
promoting well-being through education and jobs.

2. Set an international policy goal to create new, better technologies with the capacity for global
sustainability. Six priority sectors requiring new technologies in order to begin to act sustainably are (1)
power, (2) transport, (3) agriculture, (4) natural resource management (e.g., water, fisheries,
biodiversity), (5) infrastructure and development, and (6) industry. This technological overhaul requires
new public-private partnerships and governmental commitments to generate and allocate resources
sufficient to achieve the necessary scale of technological and behavioral change.

3. Develop a global framework that supports existing and future technological development. Market forces
alone are not strong enough to support widespread change.

4. Achieve economic Growth at a lower impact on the planet by targeting public-private partnerships to
achieve shared global goals.

5. Approach global environmental challenges, such as climate change, water depletion, emerging disease,
and biodiversity loss, by engaging in joint problem solving and brainstorming with countries instead of
pursuing negotiations.

6. Create an indicative, but not rigid or central, plan of action for dealing with the global sustainability
crisis.

A. SECTORAL PRIORITIES FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

1. Biodiversity

Proliferate increased understanding of the role of ecology in long-term sustainability in order to inform
political, social and economic decision making. The Earth Institute is particularly concerned with the
effect of climate change on biodiversity loss; mass extinction; emerging diseases such as West Nile Virus,
Hanta Virus, Swine flu and Avian flu; habitat loss due to conversion, fragmentation, and degradation;
and the unsustainable use of ecosystem services.

2. Climate Change

a) Delineate options for mitigation and adaptation so societies can respond proactively to anticipated
impacts of climate change and variability;

b) Develop a framework to provide policy analysis and advice to stakeholders and policymakers;

c) Optimize climate and energy policies by studying and comparing real or modeled results of different
international policies;

d) Delineate and share mitigation opportunities for high-emitting industries, such as aluminum, iron and
steel, cement, and natural gas and oil systems;

e) Develop and implement proactive strategies for near term climate prediction and risk mitigation, as a
central path for adaptation;

f) Develop the next generation of carbon capture and storage technologies; and

g) Develop country-specific methodologies for systematic assessment and comparison of the costs and
benefits of adaptation options across diverse regions and sectors.

3. Energy

Focus on technologies that will improve energy efficiency and thus reduce carbon emissions. The
abundance of fossil fuels that are low in cost, but high in carbon emissions, provides a strong incentive
to explore opportunities for capturing the carbon dioxide that is produced in the combustion of fossil
fuels and keeping it out of the atmosphere.

4. Natural Hazard Risk Reduction

Given the increasing frequency of occurrence of natural hazards and disasters, the Earth Institutes
priorities for understanding and mitigating the risks caused by natural disasters are as follows:

a) Advance predictive and forecasting capability for hazard and risk;

b) Build sustainable hazards monitoring networks;

c) Build local research and applications capacity for natural hazards risk reduction;

d) Provide worldwide access to information about human and environmental systems in order to predict,
prevent, and respond to environmental risks;

e) Assist in establishing well-designed mechanisms, which are built into sustainable development
strategies, in order to transfer dynamic and evolving scientific knowledge to policy discussions;

f) Enable governments and humanitarian organizations to better locate need and allocate resources in the
aftermath of disasters;

g) Assist the international community in shifting from a culture of response to preparedness by outlining
key measures of preparedness, response, recovery, and rebuilding incentives that can help mitigate risk
and exposure, and impacts on a nations GDP.

5. Sustainable Agriculture Priorities

a) Help scale up the African Green Revolution to reach one-quarter of smallholder farmers in Africa
producirter of smallholder farmers in Africa

c) Improve nutritional security, diet diversity and food safety in rural communities by developing food-
based solutions that are embedded within a wider food systems framework and respect cultural
preferences;

d) Communicate evidence-based science on agriculture, the environment, and human nutrition to the
general public;

e) Provide education, capacity strengthening, and professional development for students, faculty,
scientists, and practitioners engaged in issues around agriculture and food systems;

f) Accelerate the adoption of effective and appropriate sustainable agriculture initiatives by providing
funds for smallholder farmers, especially those in developing countries. Minimize negative impacts of
the global food system on the environment while increasing positive impacts, without compromising
food security; and

g) Accelerate the adoption of effective and appropriate sustainable agriculture, environmental, and
nutrition policies - and necessary financing - by international organizations, national governments, and
aid agencies through high-level advocacy;

h) Develop data driven models to assess and manage the food system at multiple scales;

As worldwide populations grow and affluence increases, the demand for food and water is on the rise.
At the same time, climate variability and change are making it difficult to provide water where and when
it is needed. Floods destroy communities in one part of the world, while in another people trek miles
every day just to get enough water to survive. The pervasiveness of water scarcity makes it one of the
most difficult challenges we need to address in the 21st century. Principles of water allocation, planning,
and governance need to be revised to promote efficient water use as part of a sustainable development
strategy. The Earth Institute considers global water management priorities to be the following:

a) Develop a predictive capability for water resource assessment on the local, regional and global levels
that recognizes changing climate, demographics and water needs;

b) Develop a capacity for the analysis of public and private investment in water resource development;

c) Develop appropriate technologies for the storage, treatment and conveyance of water to improve
reliable, cost-efficient access, as well as policy instruments that encourage efficient and equitable water
use, and test them in real world settings to substantiate their applicability;

d) Develop and disseminate the results of research on water use, in order to support global water resource
development and decision-making, through direct engagement with decision makers and through media
that influence the behavior of farmers and others who ultimately determine water use and pollution;
and

e) Address sustainable water challenges in key hot spots. The Earth Institute is currently focused on water
challenges in the Indian subcontinent, Brazil, Africa, China, and the United States.

7. Education

Educate a new generation of students dedicated to the fundamental links among the natural sciences,
technology and social practices, and the values and beliefs that influence decision-making in a world
where economic development, globalization, and a fast-growing population has led to significant
pressure on the environment.

B. EARTH INSTITUTE SECTORAL INITIATIVES THAT CONTRIBUTE TO INTEGRATING THE THREE PILLARS OF
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

The Earth Institutes Center for Climate Systems Research and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space
Studies are spearheading the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP), a
major international effort to assess the state of global agricultural modeling and to understand climate
impacts on the agricultural sector.

The goals of AgMIP are to improve substantially the characterization of risk of hunger and world food
security due to climate variability and change, and to enhance adaptation capacity in developing and
developed countries.

To achieve these goals, AgMIP is establishing a robust and rigorous research framework that connects
climate, agriculture, economic, and information technology communities; this open framework
encourages collaboration and provides a useful test bed to investigate climate products through the lens
of agricultural impacts. AgMIP is also establishing significant research opportunities to engage
interdisciplinary teams in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

The three-year project places regional changes in agricultural production in a global context that reflects
new trading opportunities, imbalances, and shortages in world markets resulting from climate variability
and change as well as other driving forces of the food system. It also builds capacity for continuing
agricultural assessment and management in developing countries under variable and changing climate
conditions. AgMIP is supported by the United Kingdom Department for International Development in
partnership with the United States Department of Agriculture.

2. Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

When 189 world leaders met at the United Nations in September 2000, they were inspired to adopt the
Millennium Declaration, which included bold targets in the fight against poverty, disease and hunger. In
2002, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan asked Jeffrey Sachs, Earth Institute director, to direct the UN
Millennium Project and identify feasible approaches to achieving these ambitious goals. Since then,
under his leadership and with the help of a global network of partners, the Earth Institute has
achieved both in rural and urban areas of African countries by the universally endorsed target date of
2015.

By harnessing the efforts of over 700 scientists, researchers and staff and developing thirty cross-
disciplinary centers, the Earth Institute has become the worlds academic leader in developing
innovative approaches to address complex problems with a special emphasis on the needs of the
worlds poorest citizens. Scientists at the Earth Institute have focused on basic human needs such as
food security by introducing innovative technology, management and policy tools to improve
environmental quality, nutrition and farmers' incomes through sustainable agricultural practices,
examined water pollution and groundwater depletion and developed strategies to combat climate
variabiliuality, nutrition and farmers' incomes through sustainable agricultural practices,
science-based interventions and local ownership is an effective means for alleviating extreme poverty,
regardless of agro-ecological or political conditions; (2) reaching the benchmarks proposed in the MDGs
the-ground, concrete investments that enable communities to lift themselves out of extreme poverty;
and 4) scientific evidence can and should be used to impact policies at the local, national, and
international levels.

This emphasis is evident in the results of the Earth Institutes demonstration projects: physicians and
epidemiologists from the health team working in close collaboration with engineers on information
technology designed to provide real time data management and monitoring that will improve
information systems; agronomists and nutritionists studying the linkages between health and nutrition
to better improve both agricultural systems and health outcomes; and all of our teams developing
ground-breaking systems and tools that are dramatically improving the quality of life in developing
communities, and which will continued to be scaled up and made sustainable through joint advocacy
and national policy efforts.

3. Natural Hazards Risk Reduction
Basic research at the Earth Institutes Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory is focused on developing the
forecasting and predictive skill for several hazardous phenomena, using observations from global,
regional and local monitoring networks, computational modeling from first principles, and, in some
cases, bench work in laboratories. Generally speaking, it is instructive to separate the discussion into
impacts olity of life in developing
and the expected events that follow well-understood probability distributions. The former can be
understood with comprehensive scenario modeling, while the latter are nearly constant reminders of
the need for effective preparedness.

a) Building Sustainable Hazards Monitoring Networks
The Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory is part of an international effort to build sustainable earthquake
monitoring networks, which combine national network operations with well-developed global
technological infrastructure.

The past few decades have seen an explosion in global environmental monitoring, comprising both
synoptic satellite observations, as well as in situ technologies deployed on land and in the oceans.
National monitoring strategies play a critical role in global observations. In the best case, national
monitoring capacity is part of the global federation of networks, which reduces the technical barriers to
data sharing and international research and educational collaborations.
National networks are frequently capitalized after a major disaster, when global financial assistance is
readily available. Under such circumstances, little thought is given to the sustainability of these modern
technologies given the inherent capacity of national institutions to run them. Thus it is important to
develop the national education and training programs that in the long run are needed to maintain and
utilize the critical information supplied by monitoring networks. It is axiomatic that international
research and education collaborations, coupled to indigenously-developed, nation-specific scientific
strategies, provide rationale and motivation to support the operations of national monitoring networks.

For example, in Bangladesh, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory geophysicists have combined forces
with faculty from the University of Dhaka and several government institutions to deploy modern
seismological and geodetic instrumentation to support national earthquake hazard assessments. This
activity is supported by the United States National Science Foundation and the United States Agency for
uake hazard assessments. This
research and international development assistance.
The Earth Institute has initiated preliminary discussions about building sustainable earthquake
monitoring networks with Latin American Countries, several south and East Asian countries, and African
countries. Support is provided by the United States National Science Foundation, the US Geological
Survey, US AID and other institutions.

b) Building local research and applications capacity for natural hazards risk reduction
Research and education collaborations, including specialized training programs, promote a long-term,
sustainable approach to building the local science and technology capacity required for national natural
hazard risk reduction programs. Such programs are aided by developed-nation investments in
international research. Lamont has participated in the NSF-USAID PIRE and PEER initiatives, as well as
basic international collaborations. In particular, a team from Marine Geology and Geophysics led by
Donna Shillington is working to develop an earthquake program in Malawi funded by the NSF
Continental Dynamics Program; the Seismology and MG&G divisions, led by Michael Steckler, are
working in Bangladesh with Continental Dynamics and USAID funding, to address the issues of
earthquakes and sea level rise; and the Tree Ring Lab, led by Brendan Buckley and others, is working in
uakes and sea level rise; and the
on monsoons, extreme storm events, climate change.

c) Developing predictive and forecasting skill for natural hazards
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory scientists are conducting basic research across all potentially
hazardous phenomena, namely: earthquakes, tsunami, volcanoes and landslides; tropical cyclones and
severe storms; flooding; and drought. Under the rubric that the past is the key to the future, Lamont has
built perhaps the worlds best group in paleoclimate. In particular, there is research on developing
chemical and biogeochemical proxies for past atmospheric temperature and chemistry, which are
providing new understanding of climate over the past several million years, encompassing several cycles
of glaciation and deglaciation. There is basic research on earthquake cycles, which may soon offer
robust, decadal-scale forecasting skill. And, of course, there is considerable research on current day
ocean and atmospheric interactions, directed toward an understanding of the physical and chemical
parameters that control climate.
There is no uniform approach to natural hazard predictability. Each potentially hazardous process comes
with its own collection of observational and theoretical constraints. However, Lamont researchers are
adept at rectifying probabilistic estimates of multi-hazard exposures so that a full-spectrum hazard
assessment can be done at national levels.

d) Knowledge transfer

Institutions such as the Lamont Doherty earth Observatory can act as honest brokers in establishing
well-designed mechanisms, which are built into sustainable development strategies, in order to transfer
dynamic and evolving scientific knowledge to policy discussions, either with international development organizations (such as our work on the "Natural Hazards Hotspots" report for the WOrld Bank and the UN) or with individual countries (work in Haiti, Dominican Republic, Bhutan). The 2010 Haiti Earthquake
demonstrates the need to expand this kind of work around the world.

The fault that ruptured in the 2010 Haiti earthquake was identified as a potential hazard in a 2008
publication in the scientific literature. Although the results of that work were communicated to the
highest levels of the Haitian government, there was neither the institutional capacity, nor the local
technical resources to pursue preparedness and mitigation strategies. Scientific results are deeply
embedded in traditional means of communication, but there are few international or national
frameworks to transfer this knowledge into actionable advice. Training, and research and educational
collaborations can help, in part. More importantly, there should be mechanisms to integrate scientific
knowledge and policy.

To help avoid a similar situation in the Dominican Republic, the Earth Institutes Urban Design Lab is
leading a national risk assessment project with the President and many state agencies, which can be
replicated in other disaster-prone areas. Flooding, hurricanes and earthquake risks can reduce a
countrys capacity for infrastructure development, but by quantifying a countrys risk exposures and
applying figures to their current national plans of action, governments can reduce the actual and
perceived impacts of natural disasters. The UDLs work in the DR attempts to re-focus the country from
a society of response to a culture of preparedness by outlining key measures in:uantifyipangr aedness, (2)
impacts on the nations GDP

4. Water

The Earth Institutes water mission is to creatively tackle the issue of global water scarcity through
innovations in technology, public policy and private action.

a) Climate Variability

The Columbia Water Center and the International Research Institute for Climate & Society are
developing predictive tools and analytical methods to help stakeholders make better-informed decisions
on cropping choices, infrastructure design, and water resource management. In much of the world, the
high variability of precipitation creates significant challenges for the appropriate management of water.

These challenges are likely to increase in an era of long-term climate change. Groundwater provides a
natural buffer to drought, but it is currently being mined in many places leading to a long-term disaster
that has to be addressed. The role of climate in determining where and when floods occur is an
emerging research area with potential benefits in risk mitigation.

b) The Global Flood Initiative:

Floods and storms cause the most average annual damage and loss of life of all natural hazards. As
climate changes, intense rainfall events are expected to increase in frequency, and coastal flooding to
become more rampant. The Earth Institute is launching a new initiative on the climatic prediction of the
space and time occurrence of floods across the globe, and of strategies to address these risks through
technological, financial and communication instruments. The growing threat of floods to global supply
chains has been shown by the recent events in Pakistan, United States, Japan and Thailand. An
integrated approach to prediction, response, recovery and engineering design from a global scale is
sought to address both local and global risks.

c) Water Resources in India

India is facing a massive water crisis. The roots of the crisis in the region are in efforts to achieve food
security through intensive, yet inefficient agriculture. The result is the largest groundwater mining in the
world, at the same time that surface water canals experience high losses. The energy used for pumping
groundwater contributes to loss of access for other sectors. Water, energy, and food availability are
linked concerns in India, and must be addressed as such. The Columbia Water Center research is
working to change this situation by working with farmers, governments, and corporations, through
innovation in irrigation strategies for farmers, changes in national cropping patterns, and changes in
electricity pricing policy.

d) Water Resources in Brazil

The Columbia Water Center works with partners in Ceará, Brazil to address the dual challenges of
inefficient water management and the high cost of supplying water to rural areas. Climate forecasts and
developed decision tools are being used for regional water allocation in order to reduce risk. A process
for planning and building efficient, inexpensive water infrastructure for rural communities was
developed and implemented. This has been adopted by state agencies to scale up rural water
development.

e) Safe Water Access

The Earth Institute fosters research on how to address persistent natural pollution of groundwater in
Bangladesh and elsewhere that has created a massive health crisis. Researchers have explored the
pathways of exposure as well as behavioral and other methods to supply safer water. Earth Institute
researchers also target novel methods of biological wastewater treatment that are efficient and
contribute to a reduction of greenhouse gases

C. GREEN ECONOMY AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

The Earth Institute is committed to promoting green economy by strengthening the interplay among
scientific research, government and the private sector. One powerful way to combine the strengths of
each of these sectors is through government support for basic research in renewable energy, waste
treatment, recycling and water filtration. As the ensuing technologies enter the marketplace, they
become engines for greater environmental protection, green job creation, sustainable urban design, and
prosperity.

D. INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

As resource use is exploding, water consumption is rapidly increasing around the globe, and earth
systems nearing tipping points, hundreds of millions of lives are now at stake. A technological road map
is needed toward sustainable production and consumption, but such a guide does not yet exist even in a
basic form. Depending on the setting, the solutions may involve the need to deploy technology or to
change behavior of key actors through appropriate incentives. Innovative mechanisms such as a carbon
levy tax, payments for ecosystem services, an African green revolution, as well as a plan to fund research
and development and to aid the required transition for poor economies. To meet these pressing needs
regional cooperation is required. The complexity and global nature of the problems we are confronting
make country-by-country efforts insufficient. Indeed, a massive intellectual effort led by the expert
community worldwide is whats needed. Scientists must plot a path toward de-carbonizing the global
economy, preserving and restoring natural resources, rebuilding and investing natural as well as built
and human capital, answering questions about climate change, determining which technologies are
viable, and ultimately coming up with a plan that takes the world toward energy and food supplies that
are much less dependent on fossil fuels by mid-century. The Earth Institute, Columbia University is
committed to this endeavor through its research initiatives and education programs, as well as its
unparalleled global reach across all sectors and a network that encompasses all levels of government,
multinational organizations, academia, NGOs, cultural institutions, and the private sector.